Elisa Rivera, COVID Relief Fraud, Florida 2022

Miami, FL - In a shocking turn of events, Elisa Rivera, a 50-year-old Miami-Dade resident and former employee of the Miami-Dade Police Department, has pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud in connection with a scheme to file fraudulent applications to the U.S. Small Business Administration to COVID-19 relief advance grants and low-interest COVID-19 relief loans.

According to the facts admitted at the change of plea, Rivera, during 2019 and 2020, was employed on a full-time basis by the Miami-Dade Police Department as an Administrative Officer. Despite suffering no loss of salary due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Rivera authorized a co-conspirator to electronically submit an EIDL application on her behalf stating that she was the 100% owner of a for-profit business operating under the name 'Elisa Rivera.'

The application falsely and fraudulently certified that the business named 'Elisa Rivera' was established on or about March 1, 2017, and that during the twelve (12) month period prior to January 31, 2020, that business had gross revenues of $325,446 and twelve (12) employees. In reality, the defendant did not own any business, was not an independent contractor, and had no business gross revenues or employees.

After having the co-conspirator submit the fraudulent EIDL application on her behalf, Rivera offered to, and did, submit fraudulent EIDL applications to the SBA on behalf of a limited group of other individuals (referred to as 'the Applicants' in the Information) who also did not own small businesses and did not qualify for EIDL relief. These applications contained false representations as to the existence of their small businesses, their gross revenues, and the number of employees each business had.

As a result of these fraudulent applications, certain Applicants received the $10,000 advances from SBA. In exchange for submitting these fraudulent EIDL applications to the SBA, Rivera charged Applicants a fee of up to $1,000 each.

Rivera is scheduled for sentencing on May 3, 2022, at 2:00 p.m. before Senior U.S. District Judge Donald L. Graham, where she faces a possible maximum sentence of five years in prison.

U.S. Attorney Juan Antonio Gonzalez commended the investigative efforts of the FBI's Miami Area Corruption Task Force, which includes task force officers from the Miami-Dade Police Department's Professional Compliance Bureau - Criminal Conspiracy Unit, and SBA-OIG in this matter, and thanked the Miami-Dade County Office of Inspector General for their invaluable assistance with this case.

Source: https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdfl/pr/miami-dade-police-department-employee-pleads-guilty-covid-relief-fraud